Tuesday, June 04, 2013

So here's my concept for this year's Illustration Master Class piece. I chose the assignment to illustrate two Game of Thrones characters, depicting Arya Stark and Jon Snow. I chose the two characters because they have this special bond, Jon being the one to nurture Arya's desire to want to be as far from the lady she's being forced to be by giving her her first sword: Needle. The two of them are black sheep in their own right, Jon being sent off to the wall, being the bastard child of the family, and Arya being defiant and free-spirited. As the story progresses the two of them are left to fend for themselves.

Arya I've depicted in a defensive pose, but Needle at hand she is capable of defending herself. As a character she is indeed very strong, but being forced to flee and survive on her own she has run into situations that are beyond her control being still just a child.

Jon's sword bisects Arya's hair in a symbolic representation of how Arya has lost her innocence and how she was forced to drop her identity and her gender to flee the capital after her father was executed.

I'm pretty confident in this composition/idea, however my only qualm is I need to finagle a way to cut her hair shorter without smushing Jon into Arya, because to pass as a boy her hair was cut waaaaaaay shorter than I depicted. Winona Nelson suggested to me that I use a shadow cast by Jon's sword further up in the composition to achieve that effect, which is something I will definitely play with until the critique next Monday when the IMC is in full swing!